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This Is the Biggest Disney Flop of All Time

This Is the Biggest Disney Flop of All Time

Walt Disney Motion Pictures has been the dominant American studio for several years. It and its several brands have pumped out some of the most popular movies of all time over that period. It has helped make Disney one of the most financially successful U.S. companies. It also has helped build the Disney brand, which includes its string of theme parks in the United States, Europe and China.

Among the largest studio brands Disney controls are Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, Searchlight Pictures and Pixar. It acquired several of these, including Pixar and Lucasfilm, spending billions of dollars.

Not everything Disney touches turns to gold. The company has had its share of flops, too. 24/7 Tempo has picked the biggest Disney flop of all time by looking at 632 feature-length Disney films and subtracting the worldwide domestic box office from the production budget.

On the list of finalists for the biggest flop are several movies many people have never heard of. The biggest flop was “Mars Needs Moms,” a 2011 film that had a production budget of almost $132 million and made less than $48 million. Behind that is “The Alamo,” a 2004 film about a pivotal event in Texas history. Disney probably doesn’t want to remember that film because it lost almost $100 million.

The worldwide domestic box office and the production budget financial figures were adjusted for inflation using historic ticket prices and the Consumer Price Index, and they come from movie industry data site The Numbers, an online movie database owned by Nash Information Services. Casting information came from the Internet Movie Database.

As mentioned, the biggest Disney flop of all time is “Mars Needs Moms.” Here are some details:

  • Loss (world ticket sales minus production budget): $131.9 million
  • Production budget: $177.5 million (69th highest out of all Disney movies)
  • Worldwide ticket sales: $45.7 million (404th highest out of all Disney movies)
  • Starring: Seth Green, Joan Cusack, Dan Fogler, Elisabeth Harnois

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